


No Fighting (& other memories)

by a_good_soldier



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Possession, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, POV Clary Fray, Post-Episode: s02e04 Day of Wrath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 20:39:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9624425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_good_soldier/pseuds/a_good_soldier
Summary: Alec doesn't know how to make amends. Clary remembers generosity.(aka a clary-pov fic about her forgiving alec and working through the fact that there's kind of not really anything to forgive and no one to blame. because feeeelings!)





	

**Author's Note:**

> ok i admit i haven't seen anything beyond episode 4 yet because i watched it and had to crank this out. jeez, i watch a show as a time-waster and i end up with an episode about killing people while possessed?? i thought i left this behind in supernatural!!! aaaaughhhh
> 
> anyway ofc spoilers for 2x04 if u haven't seen it. if you've seen it you know who the major canonical character death is.

When Clary hears the knock at her door, she knows who it’s going to be.

“Hey,” Alec says through the door, gently, like that’ll— like that’ll clean— _no_ , no, it was the demon— “I just wanted to check in. Let me know if you need anything.”

She debates staying silent — considers, too, throwing open the door and lashing out at him, like that’ll bring— like that’ll bring her— bring her _mother_ back — but she doesn’t. Just as she hears Alec sigh and start to leave, she speaks up. “Come in,” she calls.

She’s quiet, too, hesitant and fearful. She doesn’t want to let her anger out. She doesn’t want to see it.

Alec ducks in, clearly doing his best to appear non-threatening in spite of his towering stature.

She looks at him. He looks at her.

He swallows. “So,” he grates out, so soft she can barely hear him over the pounding of her own heart, “do you— um.” He’s so clearly out of his element that she can’t help but laugh when he finally settles on, “Wanna spar?”

So she laughs, and then she starts to cry, and she spits out, “The last thing I need is seeing you as a threat, Alec.”

Alec nods jerkily. “Yeah, of course,” he says, “sorry, I’m an idiot. Sorry.” He opens his mouth, like he’s gonna— what the hell is he going to say, what could he possibly say that would— he shuts his mouth, and turns his head. “Just.” He breathes out. “Whatever you want. I won’t— I won’t fight.”

Clary sighs, and she wants to throw things, she wants to punch him, she wants to break a window, she wants to burn down something beautiful just to see it disappear, but she _won’t_ , because she’s an adult. Because Jocelyn raised her better than that.

Alec stands awkwardly in the middle of her room as Clary decides on something to say. She moved to a different room, since she couldn’t stop seeing her mother’s dead body next to the door, even with the blood magicked away. Even so, she won’t let Alec close the door. She’s _afraid_ , in an irrational way, afraid in a way that makes her more irritated with herself than her anger ever could.

“Making amends doesn’t just mean letting someone else beat you up,” she says finally, because she can’t think of a better way to say it.

Alec blinks, and ducks his head. “Yeah,” he says, “yeah, I didn’t— yes. Sorry.” As he raises his hand to scratch the back of his head, his sleeve falls to his elbow; she catches the fresh slices on his arms, fresh bruises around his wrists, fresh scrapes that had to have come from using a bow without an armguard. Even in her grief, she is suddenly struck with pity for this boy, who didn’t have Jocelyn. Who didn’t have a mother that loved him unconditionally, or showed him how to say I’m sorry, or told him how to live with guilt without cutting yourself to pieces, the way Jocelyn showed Clary.

Even though her heart and her nervous system have yet to learn it, she knows intellectually that this isn’t Alec’s fault. It’s barely even the demon’s fault; Clary’s mother was doomed to die eventually, through her connection to Valentine or through her work in the Clave. Clary just thought she’d have more time.

“Alec,” she offers, “come sit.” She pats the space next to her on her bed, and Alec comes, sad, pathetic, like a wounded animal. She is reminded that in some ways, he is also a victim here.

He settles on her bed, terrified. She wonders, morbidly, if he thinks she’s going to kill him in her own bed, suffocate him with a pillow or knife him in the throat, and then realizes it’s an actual possibility. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“It’s okay if you do,” Alec whispers. He won’t look at her. She moves up the bed to make space for him, but he stays seated, keeps his shoes on.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Alec,” she repeats, and then tells him to take his shoes off. He toes them off carefully, as though she’s going to be launched into flashbacks by seeing his legs move at a normal human speed.

She pulls him up to lie next to her. She swallows. It’s been only days — her mother is barely dead in the ground — and here she is, lying next to her killer.

No. Lying next to the man whose body was used to kill her.

Clary takes his hand — the one that was bloodied, the one that ripped— that ripped into her mother’s chest and tore a hole the size of a basketball — and holds it. He’s shaking. _She’s_ shaking, she realizes, looking at him and seeing the bed shake beneath them. “Alec,” she whispers, “Alec—”

Alec’s crying; or, maybe more accurately, tears are running down Alec’s cheeks, since it seems like something he barely has control over and is barely conscious of. “I’m sorry,” he rasps. “I’m so— there’s nothing I can do to make it right.” He looks at his hand, dwarfing her tiny ones. “I’m so sorry.”

Clary blinks back tears. She presses a kiss to the top of his hair, and feels more than hears him release a sob. This is hurting him, but she’s doing the right thing, so it has to be okay. Right?

“I forgive you,” she says. Her voice shakes only a little. She didn’t know it was true until she said it.

“I’m sorry,” Alec sobs into her chest, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” but it doesn’t matter anymore, because she already forgave him.

“Alec.” She rubs the healed over scars of self-inflicted cuts, the scrapes that would still be bleeding if he were a mundane. He shudders as she presses a fingertip to each one, imagining that she’s healing as she goes. This body was taken, and used, and it hurt her; she purifies it. “Alec, I swear. I forgive you.”

Her brain knows there’s nothing to forgive; it’s her heart and her nervous system that speak.

“Thank you,” Alec breathes. That seems appropriate; this — forgiveness, healing, _love_ — is a gift from her mother. One she must never forget.

She closes her eyes, and tries to pass Alec’s gratitude on to Jocelyn. Clary hopes she can feel it.


End file.
